PLANNING TOWNS

Dominion, Volume 25, Issue 69, 15 December 1931, Page 8

PLANNING TOWNS

Mr. Mawson’s Inquiries in Older Lands

EARTHQUAKE DANGER

Having been away from New Zealand for three months, gathering firsthand information on town planning, Mr. J. W. Mawson, Director of Town planning, returned by the Monowai yesterday. The primary object of his tour was to visit Santa Barbara and San Francisco, to study the rebuilding schemes there and gain information which might be of use in the rebuilding of Napier and Hastings. "I am afraid I did not learn anything of great jalue there,” Mr. Mawson said in an interview with “The Dominion,” "but what I did see confirms my belief that we are going on the right principles here.” After visiting South California, Mr. Mawson went on to Great Britain, and came home via Canada. He had been Intensely interested in the Town and Country Planning Bill that had been brought down by the Labour Government at Home, and which, but for the proroguing of Parliament, would have become law. Mr. Mawson said this measure was a very far-reaching one, and the outside bodies interested in it had been unanimous in approving the form in which it was presented to Parliament. In New Zealand many of the proposed regulations had been anticipated, but on the question of control of land under private ownership the Bill went further than we in New Zealand had even discussed. Schemes In Canada.

In Canada Mr. Mawson visited Ottawa and Vancouver, spending most of his time in the latter city. There

a town-planning scheme had been completed which was of particular interest to New Zealand because there was a better analogy between Auckland, or Wellington, and Vancouver than any other cities in the Empire. The scheme promised to be a very great' success, Mr. Mawson said, but he thought New Zealand had gone one better still. Mr. Mawson also paid a brief visit to New York, where he was very interested in what probably, was the biggest town-planning scheme yet evolved —the work of 12 or 15 of America’s leading town planners. "It’s such a tremendous scheme that it’s almost impossible to express an opinion on it,” Mr. Mawson said. Only Four Wet Days. During the whole of his three months’ trip Mr. Mawson experienced only four wet days. “It was a marvellous trip,” he said, “and what was particularly interesting to me was the great Interest that is being shown in New Zealand, particularly in the townplanning activities here, following the earthquake. In California, New York, England, and Canada people were all Interested in what was being done.”